


and it feels like yesterday was a year ago

by jencat



Series: the pleasure in other days [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Lawyers, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anniversary, Bathtubs, F/M, Lockdown Fic, Non-Linear Narrative, OKAY it's also vaguely angsty, at some point, it's actually a real world london setting, it's just very soft okay, it's like soft angst, not tagging for all the other stuff that has happened/will happen in the damn bath just yet, quarantine fic, that went about as well as predicted, there will be yoga, this whole thing started off as a zoom yoga fic, when i say AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 12:00:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24849409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jencat/pseuds/jencat
Summary: It's been three days since she showed up at his door with two bags, a bundle of yoga gear and a basket of houseplants she couldn't quite bring herself to abandon, and asked,did you mean it? The last two of those days have, by mutual agreement, been entirely spent in bed. No phones, no checking the news or taking fretful calls. She's already lost very nearly everyone she could worry about, and Jaime is precisely where he's meant to be, which is to say, someone will figure out how to find him for any actual emergencies.The world is still going to hell outside, but it will have to manage without them both for two whole days. Just this once.**Things end up a little intense when Brienne eventually decides to spend lockdown with Jaime in his Ridiculous Lannister Penthouse. This was never not going to get complicated.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Series: the pleasure in other days [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1797694
Comments: 25
Kudos: 101





	and it feels like yesterday was a year ago

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still not entirely sure I should be posting this just yet, but I think I've made too many people listen to me blather on about this one now not to post ~anything~ after all these months? This started off as a 'Brienne is teaching lockdown zoom yoga classes' (GUESS HOW I HAVE MOSTLY SPENT MY LOCKDOWN) and then they were both lawyers and there was backstory and it got complicated and now the yoga doesn't even show up for... a while?? It's literally the least angsty thing I've ever written and I'm honestly amazed any of it is written at all, as I've been poorly and my brain hasn't been capable of doing the wording thing most of the time since about last November at this point.
> 
> The plan is for this to be a series, and for this part to be two chapters, but my brain is still leveling out from some medication again, so we'll see. It's been the most fun to write though, and that so rarely happens :)  
> (title is from Billie Eilish's Everything I Wanted, which is SO VERY MUCH a mood for this fic)

_You go on by doing the best you can. You go on by being generous. You go on by being true. You do on by offering comfort to others who can't go on. You go on by allowing the unbearable days to pass and allowing the pleasure in other days. You go on by finding a channel for your love and another for your rage._

_Cheryl Strayed - Tiny Beautiful Things_

"You know, we do actually have to get some sleep tonight." Brienne shifts her feet, draped over the side of the tub, and the bathwater lurches precariously closer to overflowing again. The tub is big enough to fit them both, which is absurd in and of itself. They've already topped up the hot water three times, because it's been hours and they are _ridiculous_ , and she's trying not to think about how awash the floor already is from earlier.

"We absolutely don't, though." Jaime says, shifting so that she slides further down beside him. The lights are low, there's music playing quietly in the background, and a faint trace of bergamot oil lingers when she takes a breath. The water is still blood warm and his hands against her skin are warmer still. "It's not midnight yet. Still officially our anniversary."

"This is _not_ a real anniversary by normal standards," she tells him, and punctuates the words with feathered kisses he leans into; the bridge of his nose and his closed eyes; the corners of his smile. "I know you know that."

True, it's not an anniversary of the first time they met (years and years and years ago, back when they were still young and sniping at each other across a courtroom), and _certainly_ not of the first time he kissed her (office party, stupidly drunk and not so young anymore; two whole days before her father died)— but it _is_ a whole year since the first time they finally saw each other again, after everything else that happened (black tie party at a stupidly expensive hotel, the first time they were finally both in the same place at the same time after months of talking about it). And, yes, okay, it's been a whole year this weekend since that first time they fell into bed together. She'll give him that.

It's been three days since she showed up at his door with two bags, a bundle of yoga gear and a basket of houseplants she couldn't quite bring herself to abandon, and asked _did you mean it?_ The last two of those days have, by mutual agreement, been entirely spent in bed. No phones, no checking the news or taking fretful calls. She's already lost very nearly everyone she could worry about, and Jaime is precisely where he's meant to be, which is to say, someone will figure out how to find him for any actual emergencies.

The world is still going to hell outside, but it will have to manage without them both for two whole days, she thinks, just this once. She's more grateful than she expected to be, for this time; for this chance to level out and face it down with some kind of grace, later. She'll be able to handle it, later, but right now—

Right now, she has her chin resting on his shoulder and her thumb tracing the curve of his cheekbone. Right now, all she can see of the world are the planes of his face and the gleam of his eyes, so dark they're barely even green in this light. Near enough she could lean in to press her forehead against his with barely any effort at all; keep him close and breathe him in. But right now, he's also looking at her like she's the answer to something, and she never did know quite what he meant her to do with that.

("Did I _mean_ the twenty seven text messages I sent asking you to stay for this lockdown thing? Shockingly, Brienne, I did— Are those _houseplants_?")

(" _I couldn't sleep," he'd murmured against her throat in the middle of the first night after she arrived._ _"I haven't slept. All week I've been lying awake thinking I didn't know when I would see you again. It nearly killed me." She'd smiled into the darkness at his hyperbole; smoothed her palms across the taut lines of his shoulders and tried to breathe through the part where she'd lasted all of three nights in her own bed before she'd packed up her car and ignored every one of the advisory guidelines to drive over here. The part where the thought of not hearing his voice like this, against her skin in the dark, had been enough to break her.)_

* * *

_The first time,_ she thinks. The first time, a year back, she had woken the next morning in that hotel room to find him dressed in a ridiculously sharp suit and packed already, (too much luggage for just the one night of the party, she suddenly realised), looking sober and sombre and more than a little wrecked, considering how they'd just spent the night. He always looked so tired, those first few months around her.

She remembers that so sharply— and the panic, that morning, that she'd lost him already, somehow. That she'd been careless with something fragile; that for all the time they had spent talking already about finally meeting tonight after months apart, that this had somehow not meant as much, or anything at all; that she had not been _enough_.

"I fucked up" he says, raggedly, and she goes cold all over. Is there a worse way to hear something like this, naked in a hotel room?

* * *

"What happens at midnight?" She says, now, sliding her feet back into the water; the arch of one foot smoothing along the side of his calf. It's been hours; the skin on her soles is pruned and vaguely textured and he presses his leg against it; tangles their feet when she traces past his ankle. "Do you turn into a pumpkin? Is there some Lannister curse you neglected to mention after all this time, because I really would have appreciated a heads-up before now."

He makes a sound halfway between a sigh and a huff of laughter. She feels the echo of it where they touch, the movement under her fingertips, under the skin of her throat where he's pressed warm against her. "No pumpkins, I promise. Just... reality kicking back in tomorrow."

"Mmmhmm." She hums it, lips pressing against the skin of his shoulder for the space of a breath. "I hadn't actually forgotten."

She almost wants to have forgotten about tomorrow, that's the worst thing. She is not somebody who _forgets,_ usually. Back when they worked together, she was someone who always sent birthday cards and anniversary gifts and thoughtful flower deliveries to arrive in plenty of time, and she did it personally; not delegated to some overworked PA.

She doesn't _forget._

But back when when she'd first heard about Jaime's accident, seven months since she'd last seen him (seven months since he kissed her, once, stupidly), she sent— she didn't send a card, exactly; that wasn't how things were between them. And honestly it seemed too small, for what she wanted to say.

* * *

That first morning after, in the hotel a year ago, he'd barely even been able to look at her. She remembers that part. All she can see are the perfectly cut lines of his jacket, and she's naked under a sheet and she hates it. The faint taste of him she remembers from last night is ashes in her mouth.

"What do you mean, you _fucked up,_ Jaime _?"_

She's trying to breathe through it, she really is, but there's half a hangover and all sorts of muscles feeling well used enough to be distracting right now, and she's lost all ability to be calm and mindful about this because she's _absolutely fucking terrified_.

He turns to look at her, and the suit's like armour; like a version of him she'd been trying not to remember so clearly since she'd walked away from the company; from the part of herself that could stomach practicing law under Tywin Lannister's regime.

"The old man's in Grand Cayman, sorting some trusts." He sounds like the words are being dragged out of him. "I've been... summoned. I'm supposed to fly out this morning." He looks at her and her heart's in her throat again. "For a couple of weeks."

She pulls the sheet tighter around herself. That's why the old bastard hadn't made an appearance at the party last night, for all she'd been considering it sheer dumb luck. For all she hadn't even thought it through, really; just been thoroughly distracted by finally seeing Jaime again after most of a year, still sharp and golden as she remembered, and wonderfully minus his dreadful family for the evening.

"That's it? And you couldn't have just told me last night?" Her voice is sharper, more exasperated that she intends, but it's prickling at things she doesn't like to think about. At what she might have done if she'd woken to find him gone already.

"I didn't want to ruin things," he says, quietly, and she feels that sharp spike of fear again; for herself, but even more for Jaime. Two weeks alone with Tywin will do him no good at all, that she's quite sure of.

"Are you leaving?" she says, and he frowns and looks over at the suitcase. "I don't mean, are you going on a stupid fucking business trip you neglected to mention. I mean, do you want out—of _this_ — after last night. Are you _leaving_?"

He moves round the bed so fast she almost flinches; ends up kneeling next to where she's sat back against the headboard, still clutching at the sheet with numb fingers. "Fuck, no, I don't want _out_. I don't know how— I'm so sorry, I am _such_ a fucking disaster at this—"

" _Oh_ —" she breathes out something like a sigh; a reflexive huff of relief. "Okay then."

She lets go of the sheet tangled in her fingers, and reaches out a hand to rest against his face; feels his hand settle warm over hers. He ducks his head to press a kiss to the inside of her wrist and she wants to smile and be giddy but it's still too new; too fragile, and the way the world works still has its claws into him.

"Well," she says lightly, glad her voice is at least a little steady; glad he still has her hand clasped tight; glad he's looking at her like he is. "I suppose you'd better go ahead and fuck off to the Caribbean for two weeks, then. Lie on a beach. Think about me."

"Oh," he says, looking at her. " _Brienne._ Ten hour days in an air-conditioned meeting room, being meaningfully glared at? _It is going to be so incredibly fucking dull."_ He leans closer; near enough for her to hear his voice lower. "Thinking about your legs wrapped around me last night? The sounds you made? That's going to be the only thing keeping me sane for the next two weeks. Make sure you keep your phone on while I'm gone."

There's a whole moment there where she can't breathe, and she knows enough to know she's in _so much trouble right now_. She says, softly and with great feeling, " _Fuck."_

He smiles at that; bites his lip in a way she can't look away from. Slides his hand down just far enough over hers to interlink their fingers and trails their joined hands to the nape of his neck; leans close enough to brush his lips across the line of her jaw; the side of her face; along her cheekbone.

Brienne lets her eyes flutter closed; breathes him in. "I cannot _believe_ you had a shower without me this morning."

She hears the hitch in his breath, and reaches out to clutch the lapel of his stupidly expensive jacket; keeping him as close as she dares.

"Because," she feels the warmth of his lips against the shell of her ear, and she shivers, "I never would have made it out of this room today otherwise, you must know that."

**Author's Note:**

> Super duper thanks to languageintostillair for being a superstar and very patiently semi-beta-ing this when my nerves weren't really up to any feedback and I was being completely incoherent :) Also to the lovely Weboury for being lovely and letting me ramble about random plot points, aaaand my awesome F1 buddy sdwolfpup for taking the time to read this very self-indulgent nonsense and reassure me it did indeed kinda make sense. It's taken a LOT of virtual cheerleading to get me this far 😊😊


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